I don't know that I'd ever want to go fishing with Kyle. I wanted him to take the BYU coaching position, but when he didn't I wasn't bothered. I shared a while ago that my parents (who were in a leadership position there at the time), saw him in the SL temple the day before he made the announcement of the change. They don't know him, but my dad talked to him for a bit, and he was definitely not taking the decision lightly and was going about it the way you'd want someone in his position to. As I look back on his career at the U, I feel like there are some things to take into consideration:

He coached under McBride and certainly learned some things, but I think he really grew under Meyer. Meyer came in and right off the bat made the pronouncement that the key to success starts with beating your rival. He put up the clock keeping track of the time until they play the Y; he changed the way people talked about BYU, including his refusal to call the Y by it's name. It's a bit childish, but Urban defined what it took to do his job and then went to work to change the way players and coaches thought (in general, not just about the Y). I credit him for creating the level of hatred that arose (I am remembering a member of the U talking about how much he hates BYU and the dude had played there one year and was from CA - no history, just re-programing).

Obviously I'm conjecturing, but in my opinion, like Urban, Kyle, upon taking the job realized what he had to accomplish. At that point BYU was the only team in UT that had any cred. It had history, it had national recognition and had the leg up on recruits. So the U had to find a competitive advantage to be able to catch up and pass BYU. Like Bronco did when he took his job, it is my observation that Whit had to make some decisions on what it would take and then put it in motion. I think all his Pac 12 references e.g. when asked how they will prepare to go against Kyle Van Noy, his response was "we face linebackers like him in the P12 every week". That's a crap statement, but it's messaging to his team, recruits and fans isn't it?

Last point, when they were having a particularly good season a while back, Whit was being interviewed by Urban who was in-between health crisis and working as an analysis on ESPN. Kyle made mention of the upcoming game against BYU and Urban said something like, "I still can't get myself to even say that name" (total butthead comment by the way). Kyle responded by saying, "c'mon coach, that's my alma mater".

So, I cut Kyle some slack and am really glad Kalani is here and not Kyle. Cheers.